Review:
The Walking Dead: Episode Four

104 – Vatos

After an episode set entirely at the survivor’s camp, we now return to the overrun city of Atlanta for an episode that crackles with tension and fear. As viewers have now come to expect, the episode’s key strength is its ability to lull you into a false sense of security.

Rick, T-Dog, Daryl and Glen have returned to Atlanta in order to rescue Daryl’s racist brother Merle, who was last seen handcuffed to the roof a department store building. Upon finally reaching the building, however, the four discovered that not only had Merle managed to escape, he’d sawed off his own hand to do so. Now they must follow his blood trail through the city if they stand any chance of catching him before he bleeds to death.

Meanwhile, back at the survivor’s camp, voice of reason Dale becomes concerned with Jim’s erratic behaviour as Jim isolates himself from the group and begins digging a series of holes on a hillside.

As good as this episode is, it very nearly falls apart twenty minutes into the story, with the introduction of another gang of survivors holed up deep in Atlanta. While it’s great that our heroes finally get to meet others in a similar situation, it’s almost completely derailed by the fact that the other humans are a group of Latin American gang member stereotypes. In spite of the underwhelming disappointment in the transparent nature of their one-dimensional characters, the group do manage to pack an absolutely killer twist in that story that single-handedly lifts the story up and away from mere mediocrity.

Even the relatively slow sub-plot set in the survivor’s camp is interesting and engaging, relying as it does on something many have never even really thought about. Just as episode two showed the significant dangers posed by a simple rain burst, the unique problem in this story is nothing more than mere sunstroke, causing Jim to behave irrationally. It’s such a damn simple idea, but it really is one that brings the more mundane aspect of the apocalypse to life with vivid detail. After all, there’s very little you can do about buying suntan lotion when you’re busy hunting squirrels to survive.